There
are numerous reasons why the Baltics were chosen as the initial
place to implement “Operation: Last Chance.” While
several relate to the specific nature of the events of the
Holocaust in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, others are a
product of practical and technical considerations. The most
important are the following:

1.

These
countries had the highest victimology rate in Europe during
the Holocaust.
Not only were the local Jewish communities almost completely
annihilated but many thousands of Jews from other countries
(Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and France)
were deported to the Baltics and murdered in Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia.

2.

The
extremely large number of local collaborators who actively
participated in the mass murder of the local Jewish communities
and Jews deported to these countries.

3.

The
fact that local police units from each of the Baltic countries
were sent abroad, where they actively participated in the
mass murder of Jews (especially in Belarus and Poland.)

4.

Following
the occupation of the Baltics by the Soviet Union in 1944,
many Nazi war criminals were prosecuted and convicted by
the Soviet authorities. These individuals can testify regarding
crimes committed during the Holocaust that they personally
witnessed without fear of prosecution

5.

The
fact that there has not been a single prosecution of a
local Nazi war criminal – in which the defendant
was healthy enough to attend the trial and bear punishment
if convicted – in any of the three Baltic countries
makes the efforts to bring the guilty to justice of unique
significance for Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian society.

6.

With
all three countries on the verge of being invited to join
NATO and the European Union, there will be special interest
in the attitude of the Baltic republics to this important
subject.